>> chair ronen: mr. clerk, can you please read item number one. >> clerk: prior to that, i'd like to make an announcement. please silence all cell phones and electronic devices.

documents referred to in presentations should be submitted to the clerk. item number 1 is a hearing to propose the submitted ordinance -- to members of and candidates for the board of supervisors, the mayor, and candidates for mayor, the city attorney, and candidates for city attorney and the controlled committees of those officers and candidates. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. and i just wanted to note that we have quite a front row crowd in the audience. we have two former supervisors and a judge. we have former supervisor tom ammiano.

we have the former chair of the ethics commission, tom renne. i will turn this over to supervisor mar. >> supervisor mar: thank you so much, chair, ronen, for allowing us to hold this informational hearing today, and i'm proud to be this sponsor on this dark money measure. it's earned the support of eight of my colleagues. i'm also proud to share that it has all been endorsed by a number of important organizations, including represent us, friends of ethics, the harvey milk lgbtq democratic club, sf league of

conservation voters, san francisco berniecrats, san francisco tomorrow, district 11 democratic club, d-6 democratic club, and several former ethics commissioners. to work towards a more democratic and equitiable future, we must start at the root. if we want to ensure just policies, if we want to ensure just outcomes, we need a just system. those in public office are entrusted to represent the public, and yet the money that fuels our elections is in large part private and fuels our super p.a.c.s who funnel large amounts of dark money in an

attempt to buy elections. my constituents experienced this in district 4 last year when over $700,000 was donated by an organization called progress san francisco, and they tried to influence the mayor's office and other supervisors' races last year. this is why i've made electoral reforms one of my priorities in office. while we strive for racial, economic, and gender equality, we must remember that political equality is at the root and intersections of each of these struggles. the path to a fairer, more equitiable and just city is one through a stronger democracy, where neither the color of your skin nor the amount of money in your wallet determines your ability to be represented and

heard. when we have enshrined in our constitution the notion that all people are created equal, when corporations are determined to be people and people are not determined equal, in this fundamental inequality has real consequences in the policy of our city and our country. with political spending reaching record highs as trust in government reaches record lows, the issue of faith in our political institution is at a crisis point. there is little question of the cause of this disillusionment. when for profits donate to political causes, this is not a kind donation. this is an investment, and they expect returns on their

investments, and these returns are real and draw the line between political inequities and racial and economic disparities. we are caught in a vicious cycle in which the rich pour money into election, secure political power and write rules that keep themselves wealthy and the rest of us struggling to get ahead. this is a cycle that builds upon itself in a dangerous feedback loop, and it's a cycle that freezes out people of color and entrenches existing hierarchies in centuries of race-based oppression. solving it is a remaining issue of the civil and voting rights movement. the study goes on to say that the government is sharply more responsive to the preferences

of the wealthy than those to the average voter. in role of case policy whe including expansion of incarceration, and our stagnant national minimum wage. so the question we must ask ourselves is not the issues -- is not the issues at hand, but what we can do about them. corporate contributions, pay-to-play politics, and dark money contributions are all places that bear no place in our democracy and have real consequences. the sun light on dark money initiative addresses all three of these issues. first, it will ban all corporate contributions to many committees. many are banned under existing law, but there are exceptions depending how businesses are incorporated. but eliminating these loopholes, we can take a clear

stand against the appearance and instances of corruption. second, it will ban pay-to-play donations from real estate developers from donating to candidates for elected offices that could play a role in improving those matters. finally, sun light on dark money will create the strongest dark money disclosure law in the nation. last year, the supervisor races were the most expensive in recent history. the race for mayor was the most expensive in recent history. too often, independent expenditure committees are a local version of super p.a.c.s are funded by state-level committees with nice sounding names like progress san

francisco. sun light on dark money would change this by requiring i.e.c.s to include disclaimers on political ads listing their top donors and the amount of their donation, and if one of those donors is another committee, the top donors to that committee. citizens united decided these donations are free speech. while we can't stop this money, we can bring it out of the dark. even in authoring the majority opinion in citizens united versus f.e.c., supreme court justice kennedy stressed the value of strong disclosure laws, writing, "prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. shareholders can determine whether their corporation's political speech advances the corporation's interest in

making profits, and citizens can see whether elects officials are in the pockets of so-called money interests." . voters deserve to know who's trying to buy their vote. the public deserves to know that our democracy is not for sale, our politics are not for sale, and our city is not for sale. before inviting up our presenters, i want to note that in addition to the report and supreme court decision i referenced, i've also introduced the following into the record for this hearing. number one, a civil grand jury report from 2013, requesting the city should require resolutions to require disclosure you ares and that the ethics commission should look again at the regulations

from proposition j. in 2000, proposition j was placed on the ballot by citizen initiative and passed by the voters of san francisco in a landslide. it regulated behavior of public officials, barring them from receiving a personal -- a personal or campaign advantage from anyone who gained a public benefit by action of the public official. this was later repealed by proposition e in 2003, which sought to recodify conflict of interest laws out of the charter, amending some of them and making nonvoter amendments possible in the future, though the repeal of proposition j's regulations went undisclosed. if passed, sun light on dark money will enact the civil grand jury recommendations. number two, a report from the brennan center of the city's

2013 effort to ban pay-to-play contributions from real estate developers which mirrors some of the language in this charter and which never went into effect. and number three, a study entitled the appearance and reality of quid pro quo corruption and empirical corruption, ensuring that contemporary politics. to be sure, while real instances of corruption exist and will be spoken on further in this hearing, addressing the potential appearance of corruption is cause enough to justify the provisions of this initiative. now i'd like to welcome up former chair of the ethics

commission and coauthor of this measure, peter keen. >> thank you, mr. chair. supervisors, i'd like to commend you for putting forth this measure. it's a measure that's really desperately needed in our democracy, in any democracy. there's a big vacuum. supervisor mar, you mentioned citizens united. one of the things i did in my former life, i was a constitutional law professor for many year, and looking at what the supreme court of the united states did in citizens united, i can equate it with a couple of other rulings which i think citizens united will have a similar history. pre plessy versus ferguson, and the ruling in precivil war, saying

that black people are not citizens, those were two great mistakes that the supreme court of the united states made, the two greatest mistakes. the third one in my opinion is citizens united in terms of the effect upon democracy. and as some point we, as our history has shown, comes together as a democracy and says this is simply not right. this goes against the whole framework of democracy. and there will come a day -- and i'm no profphet, but the supreme court will confine citizens united to the same file that did dredd scott and

plessy. as you mentioned, supervisor mar, one big allowance that we can still take care of in terms of people being sure that government is not totally bought, and that is disclosure, that even though money can be given by anyone, the people that are giving it, the u.s. supreme court has said unanimously all along, disclosure of who these people are is something that's fine. it does not fall or fly in the face of the first amendment or anything else, and even the other courts that have been procitizens united. well, we don't have disclosure. we have minimal disclosure. disclosure is virtually nonexistent. i've been watching the political process in san francisco for about the last 50 years in various things as chief assistant public

defender, dean of a law school, and members of two commissions, ethics commission and police commission. and one of the things that i see, and particularly i saw it with great vividness on the ethics commission -- i think senator kopp will echo me on this, when things would come to the ethics commission, these people are behind these measures and it's not disclosed anywhere, and there wasn't a darn thing we could do about it. we tried, senator kopp and paul renne and i tried for a year and a half to get a measure like this through the ethics commission. and i was the chair, and i had two very well known individuals, paul renne and senator kopp, and we thought we had it through. for the ethics commission to put something through, it

requires four votes. we thought we not only had four votes, but we thought we had the four votes. we had the assurance of the fourth vote. and then, on the day of the vote, it was just the three of us. me, commissioner renne, and senator kopp. and it was just a blunder bust -- i'm not an impulsive guy, but when i announced the vote, saying the measure fails, these four votes, measure fails by three -- i said the measure fails, i resign, and i walked away. i'm not someone who is dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. my family will tell you i'm a rather dull guy. but when i did that, after i did that, john gollinger and tom ammiano and i said let's go

as directly as we can to the voters. the voters want this, because they've been frustrated on so m many levels. and you, supervisors, have put it on the ballot for november. and i, someone who was not a pr -- who is not a prophet, it will win overwhelmingly. so i want to thank you very much. i want to add one other person to the long list of individuals who you indicate thd that have endorsed it. i think former mayor art agnos should get noticed. he's backing it, as are many people as we go along. thank you very much for this measure that you made. you have made a wonderful service to democracy by doing it. >> supervisor mar: thank you so much, peter.

any questions? thank you. now, i'd like to welcome up election law teacher and attorney john gollinger. >> good morning, supervisors. chair ronen. i'm john gollinger. i actually cut my teeth on these issues as a community organizer. i spent four years being an attorney for good government and environmental issues. i learned the role of politics, and i was involved in a 1996 statewide ballot measure on these very issues. i will just add, my only other credential, i've been in this city a couple of decades working in and around these issues in many capacities, but i decided to go back to school and earn my law degree about a decade ago at golden gate, and was fortunate enough to have

peter keen as my law professor, and now, as i said, i teach election law there. i want to drill down on the specifics of the measure. first, i also just want to mention by way of process. i am delighted that i think this measure will be a very good indication of how the process can work in multiple ways to get things done. as was mentioned, there was a log jam in the city hall version of how to get things done, so we're going to the ballot. but i will mention as peter said, tom ammiano, he, and i sat down last summer. we started it as an initiative petition, and some, if not all three of you signed it, and then we collected a couple thousand signatures, and then, there was an election, and we were delighted to have supervisor mar and walton

support it. i i want to drill down through the first three sections of the measure, and i'll give you the legal justification for the third. the first component of the measure as i'll describe it is closing the corporate money loophole. what the initiative does is amend section 1114 of the campaign government finance code by simply adding to the definition of corporation two other versions of corporation that have emerged since the original corporate ban was adopted. so originally, the board of supervisors adopted a flat ban on corporations donations for elected office. for over a century on the federal level, the federal government has banned direct corporate contributions to candidates for federal office.

what's occurred in recent years in particular is that other forms of corporate entities have emerged really having nothing to do with campaign reform law but specifically limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships, known as l.l.c.s or l.l.p.s. these have become common ways of doing business for a myriad of small businesses, law firms, etc. so what happened on the local start -- this started about a decade ago, i suspect crafty corporation lawyers advised their clients they could do an end run around the corporate donation ban by doing that. i said, isn't that the same thing, and they said you've got to change the law. i think that's pretty straightforward, so closing that contribution loophole.

second transparency, and this has been mentioned by presser keen and supervisor mar. but i want to give you a couple of conditions of what the dark money disclosure does. it amends section 1.61 of the government and campaign finances code. this is specifically not about candidate committee disclosure. our laws relate to the offices you and your competitors ran for were pretty good. people know when shaman walton, gordon mar, hillary ronen, run an ad, you have to put at it paid for by you. there are very few ways you could hide that or minimize that from voters. the same is not true for expenditures, also known as super p.a.c.s, and evdonation

committees. locally, san francisco has the glorious notion of being the worst local proprietor, if you will, of dark money, invented expenditure money in our local politics. so if you feel like there's tons of dark money in our politics, you're right. it's occurring elsewhere, but san francisco is off the charts in both volume and common frequency. as i've said, a few committee have made this common practice. in last november's elections, in both district 4 and district 6, progress san francisco spent more money on the campaign than the actual candidates, which is only the second time that's ever happened. so what we're really doing here is going after what voters know. and as was said, the supreme court within the bounds of

citizens united said transparency and disclosure, fine. i have a few examples. this was a district 6 mailer, and the video at the bottom of an internet mailer ad, paid for by a committee, clean and sunset. major funding by progress san francisco. and the district 6 version said paid for by san franciscans for change, major funding by progress san francisco. i think all of us in this room know who are behind that committee, but most regular people would have no reason to know. two big things. number one, it will require the dollar amount of the donors to be listed, so that voters get more than a name and an actual piece of data that they can use to say -- to ask if they wish, who's really behind this and

what's their agenda. and more importantly, it pierces the shell of fake name committees like that by requiring that progress san francisco in this example, the top two donors to that committee would also have to be listed, and the amount of money they gave to that committee. in addition, the font will have to be bigger and some other cleanup things that make it easier for voters to know. again, we're trying to give voters information and ensuring they really know who's behind the shell committee and how much they gave. only other thing i'll say on that component and i'll get to the last one is some may ask, well, aren't the clever election lawyers going to find some other way to hide, and i'm sure they will. and to that i would say, we're going to do that the same way you would eat an elephant, one bite at a time. and i think this will become the strongest in the country and a model for other cities.

so at the end, i want to submit some materials, and supervisor mar has the same if you wish to share, is the pay-to-play division, which prohibits not just the developer, which is already prohibited, but the top executives associated with that developer from giving to any city official running for the board of supervisors, mayor, or city attorney or sitting in those offices for the entire time that the measure is pending or for 12 months it's approved or after it's done. we tried to narrowly craft it, so we're talking about big projects, not someone renovating their house. big developments, $5 million or more. what i submitted for the record in terms of the basis for this is a series of articles. you all are well familiar with the f.b.i. sting on a couple of

former city officials and employees, one of whom said we pay to play in san francisco. we're the best in the biz to an f.b.i. informant who posed as a developer, what we're trying to prevent, and a series of related documents. i would ask the clerk, if you would, to pass around these three -- i gave you a copy for the record, but give it to the supervisors. so -- and i've come across this over the years, and then, over the weekend -- this is what i do with my weekend, i went and downloaded and organized for presentation from the ethics commission -- there's one specific developer who stands out i think it's a really good flash bad example about how they've done an end run around the corporate ban with a myriad of city officials at city hall. t.m.g. officials is a big office developer. they've been one of the lead

developers at 88 bluxome. so for the last 13 years, t.m.g., top executives of t.m.g., the same mostly dozen -- ten to 12 people have given on the same day, in the same amount, to the same person, campaign contributions to people running for mayor, supervisor, city attorney. and i've got, what, 11 pages of this because it started in 2006, and the last data i have it for this last he -- is for this last election. this is about the interest, this is not about the politicians. there are other laws and other things, but certainly about the developer's attempt to curry favor and make it look like their project should get approved, and they should have the inside track. so t.m.g. partners in the last

dozen years, their executives gave 327 contributions to 37 campaigns totaling over $199,000. this would ensure that t.m.g. and their executives can't give money, that the projects are approved on their merits and not based on money. so with that, i have given you my testimony on the three components of the initiatives. again, i really agree, i really encourage everyone to read it for themselves, and really thank your support for the measure. >> supervisor mar: thank you, peter, and for all of your work and these important issues protecting our democracy for so many years. i think that concludes the presentation. >> chair ronen: fantastic. and if supervisor walton has no comments, we'll open it up for

public comment. please come forward. >> vice chair kopp: good morning, members of the committee. i'm quentin kopp, a former member of the board of supervisors, and i'd like to divide my remarks in procedural and substantive categories. this has been a long, long process which began in san francisco in 1973. the trivia question before the committee this morning is what is the first municipality in california to adopt an ordinance to control campaign contributions and expenditures. it's not san francisco. we were second. san diego was first. after san diego adopted an ordinance, i telephoned the city attorney, obtained a copy

of it, introduced it in 1973, and it was enacted -- my memory fails as to whether it was unanimously enacted by the board of supervisors, and it had both spending and donation limits in it. and those spending limits remained in effect until one of the cases john gollinger referred to, buckley versus vallejo was decided by the united states supreme court which held that the first amendment was violated by a spending limitation. and so american government, local, state, and national, has been struggling ever since to control a campaign's spending

through laws addressing -- [inaudible] >> chair ronen: judge kopp, can you continue with the point that you're making, please. >> oh, did you have a time limit on testimony? >> chair ronen: i wanted to hear both. >> all rig . >> vice chair kopp: all right. let me see how fast i can say i wa want -- i was appointed to the commission by the board of supervisors until i resigned out of a feeling of futility. and i know that peter keen isn't dramatic in his presentations or public pronouncements, but he was

understandably dramatic, and if he isn't dramatic enough, i know my friend, mr. ammiano will be dramatic because that was once his profession. and we should have done this two years ago in the ethics commission of the city and county of san francisco. and the record which mr. gollinger amassed is absolutely persuasive to anybody who doubts what happens underneath the spotlights and out of the public sunshine, and i am pleased that the board of supervisors has adopted what otherwise would have cost much time, money, and effort to put before voters, a.

and i know this is just informational, but i believe it will be successful with a combined effort of all those who believe in trying to present voters with honest choices of people with integrity who are not the minions of vested wealthy developers or other professions in san francisco. thank you. >> chair ronen: thank you. assembly member ammiano, would you like to speak? >> drama queen. good morning. if you don't mind, mr. young, i just wanted to say hi, it's been a long, long time, and it's nice to see you. i think the eloquence that

you've heard today, as an elected, i think you all know you get that swearing in ceremony, and you're just so happy, and we're going to take on the world. and then, the kind of offers that come in because you won -- not because they necessarily agree with you when you were running are somewhat astounding. when i was first elected, i was approached by an entity who said they might be able to raise $25,000 for me. i don't want to embarrass anybody, but i'll give you its initials, which is pg&e. needless to say, stopped in the hole by a prominent member of the community, mentioned his name, and presented me with an envelope of cash. this is how blatant it was. and i think the senator can relate to sacramento, things

are bad here. in sacramento, they are amazingly tricky, and there's so much stealth that goes on. i was walking to work one day and was approached by a lobbyist. wanted to know if i wanted to stop at starbucks. and i said no, and she said here, here's a check. and i said no. and she was actually hurt because it's been so inured into the system, and in the system, it's things that are wrong. so i'm very happy to have the sponsorship and i thank you, supervisor mar, for your leadership, and i look forward to a victory. and just one kind of caveat, a spoiler, but i can't help as a citizen -- [inaudible]

>> chair ronen: thank you so much. mr. bush? >> thank you very much. i'm larry bush. i'm a member of friends of ethics. in 2016 and 2018, both times, we paid for professional polling to find out what the public sentiment was on contributions coming from developers and those with land use issues, and i've provided you copies with that, but it was shown that 70% of the people felt we needed to go further than we had. with charlie marstellar, we did a review of lobbying in san francisco city hall and found that 90% of the lobbying is about development, but our law only addresses contracts, not developers per se. this will close one of those

loopholes. there's been a lot of talk about what examples we have, and i would point your attention to an article i provided from san francisco public press, which was about allies of the mayor who were called in by the mayor and his top aides, as well as some officials from the board of supervisors and told that their applications for development hinged on whether or not they gave contributions. it was very explicit, and there was a billionaire who was present who said if you don't want to give directly, i will give money in your name to someone so that it will still be covered and the money will still be raised. it was then raised by commissioner kopp for investigation by the ethics commission, and while there was some interviews that took place from the city attorney's office, the city attorney's

office decided not to seek subpoenas and put anybody under oath about what had happened, so this is something that's very real and very much influences how decisions are made in san francisco. thank you. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. is there any other member of the public who wishes to speak on this item? good morning, jordan. >> thank you. you know, i was not here for is this item. i was here -- i was not here for this item. i was here for another item, but i wanted to speak on this item. i am a district 6 resident. i did a lot of volunteering on supervisor haney's campaign, and he won, which i'm really glad he did, but a lot of dark money came in to his opponents. funny story. you know in district 6, there's a lot of concern about the fate of the streets. well, our streets were littered

with all these glossy mailers funded by god knows who. i'm, like, what's going on here, and i would often take pictures of it and post-it on facebook, saying, you know, if you're going to litter our streets, you're automatically not fit to be supervisor. and of course, like, there was the other things, like, you know being like, influenced by diagnosed -- like, who knows, ron conway or whatever? but you know, i kind of, like, took the opportunity to troll some people. i said send some pictures of glossy fliers with bad color schemes. and said pick up your trash. and i want to know where that fucking trash is coming from. this proposition is so fucking

necessary. we need to get it on the ballot and get rid of this shit, and if we can't get rid of this shit, we need to know what's littering our streets with it. >> chair ronen: good morning. >> my name is vivian torelli. i have been a campaign worker since 1985, for art agnos. i carefully choose my candidates in terms of what they can bring to my city in terms of values, organization, and insight, and then, their chances of getting elected are threatened when their opponents have huge war chests to slam us. these are not only designed to affect the outcome of the election but are designed to exert undue influences on the policies of our opponents. a striking example was mayor

breed, who in obvious deference to her donors who would be taxed under prop c did not support this strong source of revenue that was the antithesis of what her donors wanted. yet, then she turned around and said her priority was homeless services and lamented that we need money for that. donations have a loud voice and can shout down candidates who have the moral integrity who refuse to do the same in return. we need your support for the package of public financing campaign reform to give admirab admirable candidates a fighting chance against elections seeking control and elected officials. >> chair ronen: thank you. next speaker, please.

>> eileen boken. coalition for san francisco. and san francisco education and action committee. here on my behalf here in support of the sun light on dark money initiative. this initiative would take steps to level the playing field by increased disclosure, limiting contributions, and enforcement to ensure compliance. it would take steps to control some of the excesses created by citizens united. it would repeal the board of supervisors' ordinance from 2015 eliminating certain disclosure requirements for independent expenditure committees. it would implement safeguards against pay-to-play for that appearance on development decisions. i would like to acknowledge each of the supervisors who have sponsored this initiative. it would move the election

process in a better and more equitiable direction. it would make elections more competitive even for those candidates without deep pocket donor base. it would encourage more candidates to run who might not otherwise because of the daunting task of competing with candidates connected to super p.a.c.s, and hopefully this will reign in the endless reporting in the media about which candidate has raised the most money. thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is holda garofalo, and i have served on two grand jurys. the ethics commission was one of our topics, but that led us to looking into how nonprofits and super p.a.c.s really prevent -- present a huge problem in our city.

we always here about the swamp -- hear about the swamp in washington, d.c. san francisco has a pretty murky swamp of their own, and it's time we tie up all those loopholes, have a city for the people, not for the lobbyists, the politicians who benefit because they're totally self-interested. it's time to start serving san francisco. oftentimes, our public servants forget "public servant" means serving the people. you work for us. it's time to start doing that without the slime and murk attach tod attached to it. thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. i'm charles marstellar, formerly with common cause and certainly now with friends of ethics. i do want to say that at one time, we had a very robust

investigative press, and like the rest of the country, we've seen a terrible decline in the ability of the press to fund that type of investigative reporting. we're working our way through that, but right now, there's a deficit that we really need to makeup for, and i think it goes to the law. we need to adjust our law accordingly and now to take action to make sure on this side of the law, we rewrite our laws to deal with some of these loopholes that we hear about and no longer expect the press to address those through robust reporting. they do what they can, but it's not enough. and i think the supervisors here saw that in the last

election process season that brought them to this body. and i do want to thank them for their efforts and interest because they saw what that means, and the corruption in this town that the press could not pick up the story on. so now's the time to address the law, and i think you've done an excellent job with this bill, and i want to thank the sponsors, mr. keen and john gollinger and mr. ammiano on this, and i'm glad that eight members of the board are supporting this, a broad spectrum of the board, as we are on this issue, a broad spectrum of america. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. next speaker. >> hello. my name is agatha vassilar, and i'm speaking to you as a

regular constituent whose family has been here 30 years. before the 2018 election, i travelled around the country doing a project called inside out book project, and you know the san francisco mural that's on display in the sf moma, it's the same project that's on the voter registration. i talked to hundreds, if not thousands of people, and the major reason i heard that people don't vote is in a system where a corporate machine drowns out our vote, it's very easy to believe that our conversations with elected officials don't matter. this is it. big money out of politics is that root cause issue, and it's my greatest wish to revitalize the culture of democracy in san

francisco and the country, and i think this is such a great step towards enacting that movement, so thank you so much. >> chair ronen: is there any other member of the public who wishes to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: i just want to say that it's rare to see such a piece of common sense legislation. it's pretty straightforward. if corporations can't donate to candidates, then limited liability corporations shouldn't be able to donate to candidates. if people with contracts before the board -- or before a decision maker who is running for a particular office should not be allowed to donate, then developers with housing projects before that same body shouldn't be allowed to donate. and if a law exists to ensure that we know who pays for campaign propaganda, then we shouldn't allow those donors to

hide behind fake names. i mean, that's the essence behind this really common sense lemgs latio legislation. i have shared your frustration, commissioners keen and kopp for the failure of the ethics commission to pass something so common sense. i want to thank all of the advocates, thank you so much for your relentless work in this matter for not getting so disenchanted that you stopped pushing and stopped trying and stopped using other methods to go directly before the voters who i agree with you, peter, are going to overwhelmingly

pass this measure. and i really want to thank my colleague, gordon mar, for putting this -- being the leader behind this effort. supervisor walton? >> supervisor walton: thank you, chair ronen. i just want to echo the terms of my fellow committee members in terms of the importance of knowing who is giving to whom. the citizens united decision set us back in a lot of decisions in the supreme court. as you know, we're going back in a time warp, so any time we have a chance to make a decision in good policy that is really going to disclose some of dark money and some of the things that are happening in our political system, we ought to be able to do that. and i want to thank supervisor mar for stepping up and all the colleagues that supported this initiative or ordinance because it is important for us to know

who is giving money toward races, so we can shine a light on what's happening in our campaign. so thank you so much, and again, i appreciate all the public comment and everyone for coming out this morning. >> chair ronen: supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: thank you, chair ronen. and i just wanted to thank everyone for being here today and actually for many years, as judge kopp mentioned, this work goes back to the 1970's, and really for standing up against dark money, standing up for transparency and democracy. this is all about us knowing about who's trying to buy our elected officials and votes. we need to ensure our leaders are accountable to the public, not to dark money donors, corporations, or big developers. and with this initiative, we

will end corporate contributions. we will end pay-to-play policy particulars. and our work doesn't end there, and the board of supervisors will have another public finances ordinance to vote on this coming fall, but this initiative is crucial and a ground breaking step forward, so thank you so much for everyone here for all of your work on it. >> chair ronen: thank you. and with that, i will make a motion to file this hearing. if i can take this without objection? without objection, that motion passes. thank you so much. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: mr. clerk, can you please read item number 2. [agenda item read]. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. and we've been joined by supervisor haney. hello, supervisor haney. you want to start us off?

>> supervisor haney: well, thank you, chair ronen and our rules committee members for having me again. and this will be, as required by the -- when we amend a charter amendment, we have to come back a second time. i just want to reiterate what some of those amendments are which reflect feedback from the department, from the mayor's office and from stakeholders to ensure better coordination moon the existing advisory bodies. we are also in the process of drafting trailing legislation that will enact legislation among the current advisory bodies. these amendments also ensure that the commission acts in partnership with the committees to comply with mandates from state and federal funding, and they reflect the need to exempt

contracts procured under the shelter ordinance from commission approval. that was one of the concerns that the department put forward that we addressed in these amendments. it also changes one of the appointment seats from the board of education to the controller, and it gives us more time to see and start the commission in may instead of march. i'm confident that these amendments make this an even better proposal and improvement and will help the city better serve people experiencing homelessness and living in supportive housing. i appreciate the support of this committee and look forward to the commission being on the ballot. i won't go into a lot of details about the commission itself because i think we heard that fully last time around, but i'm happy to address any questions that you all have about it and hopefully will have your support -- continued support. thank you. >> chair ronen: thank you so much.